165 February 5, 1982 MOSCOW'S POISON WAR OF BA TTL EFIED
INTRODUCTION MOUNTING EVIDENCE ATROCITIlES From the battlefields of
Laos, Kampuchea and Af ghanistan grisly evidence mounts of the
systematic use of universally condemned methods of warfare. There
the Soviet Union and its proxies are waging a clandestine war of
chemical terror against the political and ethnic groups that have
refused to be subd u ed by conventional arms. In exasperation,
Soviet-backed forces have turned to a poisoned earth policy
designed to drive indigenous nationalists and anti-communist
guerrillas in Laos, Kampuchea and t Afghanistan from their homeland
sanctuaries. The result: thou sands of men, women and children have
been indiscriminately slaughtered in what could become, if
unchecked, a brutal poison holocaust At first, there were-only
scattered stories of chemical atrocities and they were disbelieved
and generally ignored. t he reports persisted and damning proof
mounted. In recent months, the evidence has become irrefutable and
stands as an indictment of the Soviet Union for crimes against
humanity But MYSTERIOUS DEATH CLOUDS In 1976, terror-stricken
refugees began streaming out of Laos carrying news of a gruesome
new addition to the arseaal of the Soviet bloc called "Yellow Rain"
because small particles in the cloud made sounds like raindrops as
they settled on the roofs of their huts and on the surrounding
fields. The myste r ious yellow poison delivered by aerial bombing
and artillery attacks, inflicted bizarre and grievous injuries on
the victims, often resulting in quick, painful death. Direct
exposure to the clouds caused breathing difficulties, extreme
irritation of the e y es, skin nose, throat and lungs. Small, hard
blisters formed over They told of a poisonous yellow cloud that
they 2 exposed body surfaces. This was accompanied by coughing of
blood-tinged material, choking, dizziness, multiple hemorrhaging of
mucous membr anes, vomiting massive quantities of blood, the
seeping of blood from eyes, ears and nose, convulsions, and death
All this happened within hours, sometimes minutes Shortly after
death, the skin turned black.

Villagers less exposed to the poisonous cloud re portedly took
longer to develop the symptoms and had.some chance of surviv ing.
Many of these, however, died after a prolonged and agonizing
struggle with grotesque maladies terrible skin blistering chest
pains, inflammation of the eyes, nose, throat and b reathing
passages nausea, vertigo, bloody diarrhea, massive hemorrhaging
throughout the body but especially the lungs, the spewing of blood
from all body oriZices, neurological spasms and shock. So many
different vital organs and bodily functions were dam a ged that it
was difficult to determine the precise cause of the victimfs death.
So ghastly was the spectacle that one expert described the Victims
as Ilwalking hemorrhages1! who literally drowned in their own blood
The poison clouds also killed livestock and damaged crops and
vegetation. Plants contaminated by the powdery residue developed
numerous scorched blotches about one millimeter in diameter
scattered over the surfaces of the exposed leaves.

These distinctive marks did not resemble the after-effects of
any known chdcal weapon, herbicide or plant pathogen tribal areas
in central Laos. Later, tales of similar chemical attacks began
trickling in from Cambodian refugees in Thailand and Afghan
refugees in Pakistan. The descriptions they gave were remarka b ly
similar particularly so because these refugees had very limited
medical knowledge and were separated from each other by vast
geographical and cultural differences. Each of these
technologically unsophisticated peoples described the results of
the poiso n in terms of their own experience and cultural back
grounds. The Kampucheans, for instance, reported that the victims
in their death throes "were jerking like fish when you take them
out of the water the Afghans recounted scenes of compatriots
jerking lik e dogs with broken backs persistent reports of unusual
medical symptoms, coming from rural peoples with minimal contact
with the outside world as well as each other, made it impossible to
discount such statements as inventions of opponents of the local
reg i me. Not only did the flood of refugees fleeing the affected
areas provide similar accounts of appalling deaths, but the doctors
treating survivors in field hospitals and relief camps thousands of
miles apart recognized similar after-effects: hoarse voices ,
vision impair ment, weakness, lung disorders and skin lesions
Initial reports of IfYellow Rain" were confined to the Hmong The
similarity of these 3 THE SFURCH FOR TEE In fall 1979 SMOKING GUN
the Pentagon to Thailand to verify rumors-of dispatched an ar m y
medical team chemical warfare in neighboring Laos and Kampuchea.
After extensive interviews with refugees who had witnessed attacks,
Dr. Charles Lewis, the head of the medical team and chief of
dermatology at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antoni o ,
Texas, identified three basic sets of symptoms produced by Yellow
Rain 1) skin burns and burns to the eyes nose and throat; 2) spasms
and convulsions; and 3) massive hemor rhaging different chemical
agents were involved: a vesicant or blistering agent t h at caused
the burns, a nerve agent that caused the convul sions and an
unknown agent that produced the hemorrhaging Lewis concluded that
at least two or pdssibly three The medical team was given a sample
of the yellow substance left behind in one attack b u t experts
were unable to detect any known chemical agent. They did discover,
however, a chemical Itsurfactant" called lauryl sulfonate, commonly
used in liquid soaps and detergents to facilitate penetration of
surfaces to be cleaned. while army doctors we r e unable to
identify the specific agent or agents being used, they returned to
the U.S. totally convinced that chemical attacks were in fact
taking place. There could be no other explanation for the numerous
accounts of "Yellow Rain" or the presence of la u ryl sulfonate at
the site of one attack These findings, however, evidently were
not'welcome by the Carter Administration. It soft-pedaled the issue
of chemical warfare in Southeast Asia apparently because it did not
want to irritate the Soviets, with whom the U.S. was negotiating an
arms control agreement. The State Department adopted what, in retro
spect, was an overly-cautious, non-committal stance. It did not
want to raise the issue without absolute proof and this was
inardinately difficult to obtain. t y was extremely interested in
the reports, it wished to verify them covertly to avoid alerting
the Soviets that their actions had been detected. The issue may
well have faded .were it not for the determined efforts of a number
of individuals horrified by t t ie use of battlefield poisons:
Representative Jim Leach (R-Iowa who focused congressional
attention on the issue; journalist Sterling Seagrave, author of
Yellow. Rain, the most complete published account of Soviet and
Soviet-sponsored chemical warfare ope r ations; and Jane
Hamilton-Merritt, an expert on the Hmong hill trues and author of
Gas Warfare in Laos1 Reader's Digest, October 1980) and IITragic
Legacy from Laos Reader's Digest, August.1981 Among the
organizations which have brought the matter to publ i c attention
are the Committee for a Free Afghani stan, Freedom House and the
International Rescue Committee While the intelligence communi Since
taking office, the Reagan Administration has proved less concerned
than its predecessor about Itupsetting the Soviets.

The new team in the White House pushed hard to obtain
irrefutable evidence of illegal chemical warfare activities. Solid
evidence 4 was elusive because the attacks were in remote locations
deep within communist-control led territo'ry and the .atta ckers
seemed to be taking special precautions by using Napalm to destroy
residue of the chemical attacks. Survivors understandably had not
thought of gathering physical evidence of the attack while their
comrades writhed nearby in their terrible terminal agony. Nor could
survivors be expected to risk contamination to acquire
evidence.

Some who did attempt to collect proof and transport it out of
the war zone died from exposure to the evidence that they were
carry ing. Others lacked the strength for the lon g trek to a
friendly border after exposure to the toxic agents. Moreover, by
the time that word of an attack had filtered into a friendly
country, the evidence at the site of the attack typically would
have been dissipated by the heavy rains in Southeast A sia, the
storms and snows in Afghanistan and other natural processes.
Producing a corpse was nearly impossible because of the problems
with trans porting it through enemy lines and the speed of body
decomposition in Southeast Asian jungles. In Afghanistan ,
moreover, any attempt to use the corpse as evidence would conflict
with the Moslem custom of burying the deceased on the day of death
TEE SMOKING GUN: TRICOTBECENE MYCOTOXINS Despite the difficulty of
securing physical evidence of chemical attacks and th e arduous,
time-consuming task of identify ing the mysterious chemical agent,
Washington finally has solved the five-year-old riddle of
illlYellow Rain Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced on
September 13, 1981, that the United States has identified the
critical lethal agent as a compound composed of three tricothecene
mycotoxins poisonous substances produced by the fusarium fungus.
These mycotoxins were found at the site of a l1YeXlow Raini1 attack
in levels up to twenty, times greater than they occ u r in nature.
These mycotoxins are a perfect fit for "Yellow Rain they produce
all the symptoms of poisoning reported and do not produce any
symptoms not reported sample of lethal powder taken from a leaf at
the site of an alleged chemical attack open to c r iticism because
they lacked the important negative controls of the testing process
that could have provided informa tion about the tricothecene
l.evels of uncontaminated vegetation outside the immediate area of
the attack. However, legitimate doubts about the validity of the
findings subsequently were erased in early November'when three new
samples were tested. One of the new samples was water taken from
the same Kampuchean The first State Department announcements were
based on one Findings based 'on such e vidence were The substances
were identified as Nivalenol, Deoxynivalenol, and T-2 toxin
severity; while Nivalenol was a stronger hemorrhagic,
Deoxynivaienol induced harsher vomiting and T-2 had greater skin
irritative effects All three produced similar sy mptoms but differ
in the degree of 5 village which provided the first evidence. The
two other new samples came from separate chemical attack sites in
Laos. Two of the three had even higher tricothecene levels than the
first.

Specimens of uncontaminated background soil and vegetation from
the areas confirmed that the identified mycotoxins do not occur
naturally in the affected areas.

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on November 10,
Richard Burt, Director of the State Department's Bureau of
Politico-Military Affairs, testified that IIYellow Rain s" mysteri
ous lethal agent had been conclusively identified We now have a
smoking gun evidence. We may soon have more as, I regret to say,
chemical attacks have been rep o rted in Laos and Kampuchea within
the last mon th Any one who conducts his own inquiry will come-to
the same conclusions we have I We now have four separate pieces of
physical TEE SOVIET CONNECTION There is more than a smoking gun.
There is strong evidenc e that it is Soviet-made and
Soviet-supplied. Equally damning is the evidence that Soviet
advisors in Southeast Asia may be involved in the use of the
terror-weapon and that Soviet troops in Afghani stan undoubtedly
are. I'Yellow Rain and other chemical we apons are being delivered
by Soviet-made aircraft, rockets and artillery.

Members of the U.S.S.R. Chemical Corps are present in large
numbers in Afghanistan and have been reported in Laos, where they
may be gauging the battlefield effectiveness of chemical delivery
techniques and toxic munitions.2 chemical attacks to its
Vietnamese, Kampuchean and Pathet Lao allies, there are reports
that the Soviets also have taken part directly in the attacks.
Hmong tribesmen have seen "roundeyell pilots in the slow, low -
flying AN2 aircraft Soviet biplanes used as crop-dusters in the
U.S.S.R that drop the "Yellow Rain over Laos. A Vietnamese defector
says that he observed two Soviet advisors fire a round of chemical
m~itions at Khmer Rouge guerrillas inside Kamp~chea Alth o ugh
Moscow 'seems for the most part to leave the actual Soviet
technical support personnel participate actively in the operations
of the chemical warfare logistical infrastructure in Laos, Vietnam
and to some extent Kampuchea. Independent intelligence sou r ces
confirm that a seven-member team of Soviet chemical warfare
specialists visited the Laotian cities 'of Pekse and Seno to
inspect chemical weapons after chemical attacks in For example, see
the State Department's compendium Reports of the Use of Chemic al
Weapons in Afghanistan, Laos and Kampuchea Summer 1980, p 43.

Reported in Bangkok Post article reprinted in FBIS, Daily
Report,. Asia and the Pacific, September 25, 1981, p. J1. 6 1978.4
Thai military intelligence and American radio monitors have record
ed and translated radio conversations of Russian officers giving
instructions for shipment of chemical warhepds from a chemical
munitions depot in Laos up a highway toward Phu Bia Mountain the
Hmong stronghold that has been the target of repeated chemical
attacks for over five years. Another radio intercept recorded an
exchange,about a high-ranking Soviet general touring several
chemical munitions depot while the Vietnamese have had some
chemical warfare units for some two decades and are capable of
conduc t ing chemical operations it is extremely doubtful if not
impossible -0 that they could produce the large quantities of
mycotoxins that are being dumped on villages and fields in
Southeast Asia. Not only does Indochina lack large-scale biological
fermentati o n facilities but the four chemical warfare depots
already identified in the area are known (through radio intercepts)
to be receiving chemical munitions from the Soviet Union.6 Among
the world's communist states, only the Soviet Union poss'esses the
indus trial facilities and chemical warfare research testing and
production capabilities needed to produce large amounts of
mycotoxin in a form that could be used effectively as a weapon.

The combination of tricothecene mycotoxins identified in the
Yellow Rain" samples does not occur naturally in plants native to
the jungles of Southeast Asia. The fusarium fungus producing these
mycotoxins thrives on grain and bread exposed to cold, wet climates
and exists throughout much of the U. S S R where histor- ically it
has posed a serious threat to the Russian food supply.

Large-scale epidemics of what the Russians have called It
staggering sickness above all, a bleeding disease) repeatedly have
broken out in the Ukraine, Soviet Central Asia, the Urals and
Siberia due to the contamination of the Russian grain stores by
potent mycotoxins. In 1944, up to thirty percent of the population
of the Orenburg district in Siberia were stricken by the poison and
an estimated ten percent of the population almost thirty thousand
peop le reportedly died.

Soviet scientists began studying the disease intensively in the
1930s and mycotoxins have figured prominently in Soviet scientific
literature over the past fifty years. Sterling Seagrave points out
that of the fifty articles on tricothe cenes in Soviet open source
literature, twenty-two deal with defining the optimum conditions
for biosynthesis of the compound a sign that the Soviets have more
than a passing interest in obtaining large quantities of the
poisons. Research projects on myco toxins are William Saf ire,
"Yellow Rain Sterling Seagrave, Yellow Rain Ibid Ibid p. 192.

New York Times, December 13, 1979 New York: Evans, 198l p. 35. 7
carried out at heavily guarded Warsaw Pact institutes which
previously worked on chemical and biologi cal warfare research.s
With the world's most advanced research program in the field of
tricothecene toxicology, the Soviets definitely possess the
knowledge, personnel and facilities needed to produce the poisonous
ingredients of IIYellow Rain I It now ap p ears, moreover, that the
mysterious gas $hat took hundreds of lives during the final stages
of the 1963-1967 Yemen Civil War may have been an early version of
I'Yellow Rain only was the poison gas in Yemen never identified,
but victims of the gas attacks s uffered the sane hellish symptoms
as did the victims of IIYellow Rain" a decade later Not As if to
admit tacitly that it has something to hide in the matter, Moscow
repeatedly has tried to block formation of an impartial U.N.
codssion to investigate the s i tuation in Laos Kampuchea and
Afghanistan and has not cooperated with it once formed.g Moscow and
its allies have denied the U.N. access to the sites of chemical
attacks. Despite Soviet obstructions, a U.N. panel of experts was
dispatched to Thailand in N o vember to verify reports of Communist
chemical warfare activities in neigh boring Laos and Kampuchea
Because the panel was not granted sufficient time or resources to
fulfill this mandate, it was unable to reach a final conclusion as
to whether or not che m ical weapons had been used. However, it did
note that the symptoms reported in some cases Itcould suggest a
possible use of some sort of chemical warfare agents In view of
these tentative findings the U.N. General Assembly overrode Soviet
bloc objections a nd on December 9, 1981, voted 86 to 20 (with 34
abstentions) to extend the investigations for another year. Since
Pakistan recently granted the U.N. panel permission to visit Afghan
refugee camps inside its borders, the U.N. panel of experts is now
expect e d to address the matter of chemical operations within
Afghanistan The investigation of reported chemical warfare
incidents is a critical test of United Nations credibility. A
November 27 1981, Washington Post editorial declared The United
Nations group ha s so far not accomplished much of anything the
group must be given adequate time and financial resources to
accomplish a difficult task The charges being investigated, after
all, go beyond whether this or that chemical has been used.

They engage nothing less than what the United Nations is all
about the international rule of law. The State Department Fact
Sheet, September 1981, p. 2.

During the Korean Gar, the U.S. called for the U.N. Security
Council to investigate Soviet charges that the U.S. was using
bacteriological weapons.

The investigations were blocked, however, when the Sovie.ts
vetoed the measure in the Security Council. 8 integrity of the
international system demands that they be conclusively proved or
refuted CBEMICAL ATTACKS IN LAOS Reports of chemical attacks began
filtering out of Laos in 1976, although the first attacks began as
much as two years earlier. The State Department has documented.wel1
over one hundred separate assaults, most against the Hmong (also
known as Meo) hill tribes of ce n tral Laos. As traditional foes of
the lowland Pathet Lao, the Hmong sided with the French against the
Viet Minh in the early 1950s and sustained an estimated 30,000
casualties aiding the U.S. fifteen years later. For this reason
they dre hated by the Viet n amese and Pathet Lao who have used
chemicals to attack defenseless villages inhabited by old people
women, children and other non-combatants. At least half of the
Hmong sgniving the gas attacks died on the trek to Thailand of
exhaustion, malnutrition or P athet Lao ambushes. The few who
manage to get across the Mekong River to Thailand have been
described as lrwalking skeletons'carrying skeletons out of the
jungle.

In addition to the "Yellow Rain the Vietname,se and the Pathet
Lao have employed a lethal red colored gas and less'potent
blue-green and white poisonous gas clouds. These are delivered by
helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, artillery and rockets. The
attackers, it seems, are testing various combinations of chemical
agents and means of delivery. Pat h et Lao soldiers, meanwhile
appear to be experimenting with antidotes to the poisons. There
have been reports of soldiers wearing cloth masks entering the
villages shortly after gas attacks to inject the inhabitants with
medicine and then take them to hosp i tals for obsenation.l0 These
attacks are destroying the Eimong as a people. While Eimong in Laos
numbered about 500,000 in 1960, there are now fewer than 100,000
remaining; 100,000 are in Thai refugee camps or relocated to the
West, including about 40,000 in the United States. At least 15,000
to 20,000 Hmong are estimated to have died in the communist
chemical onslaught.ll Many of those who successfully have fled to
freedom were exposed to poison gas and continue to suffer constant
headaches, painful muscl es and joints pulmonary disorders, and eye
and ear problems. At least thirty five Bong adults in the U.S. have
died suddenly in their sleep for no apparent reason lo See, for
example, State Department Compendium, p. 68 l1 Seagrave, op. cit p.
253.

Jane .Ha milton-Herritt, "Tragic Legacy from Laos Reader's
Digest, August 1981, pp. 96-97. 9 1CAL ATTACKS IN KAMPUCHEA The
State Department has documented at least twenty-eight separate
chemical attacks in Kampuchea. The evidence comes from interviews
with Kampuch e an refugees, Vietnaplese defectors and Kampuchean
nationalist resistance fighters As in Laos, the munitions used and
means of delivery varied widely. Chemical attacks began much later
than in Laos and increased markedly in late 1979. lfYellow Rain"
weapon s have not been used as frequently as in Laos possibly
because the contested terrain was too close to the Thai border and
also was much more vulnerable to conven tional military attack.than
the mountain sanctuaries of the Hmong in northern Laos In a typica
l chemical operation in May 1981, a Vietnamese mortar attack only
miles from the Thai border left scores dead and drove sixty-five
Kampucheans across the border to Thai refugee hospitals where they
received 'treatment. Thai army tests found traces of cyani d e in
water. samples and plant life recovered from the area, while the
Bangkok-based International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed
that numerous people were being treated for chemical poisoning,
some of whom died. l3 The Vietnamese also have launched c hemical
'attacks on the Thai side of the border In March 1980, a Vietnamese
aircraft violated Thai airspace to drop toxic gas after it was
fired on by Thai forces. l4 January 29, 1982, the State Department
announced that the analysis of nine blood samples taken from
survivors of a chemical attack in the fall.of 1981 provided
additional evidence of chemical operations inside Kampuchea I On
CBEMICAL ATTACKS IN AFGHANISTAN State Department files contain
evidence of well over fifty instances of chemical attack s in
Afghanistan U.S. officials receive a constant flow of eyewitness
reports from Afghan freedom fighters, journalists and doctors who
have treated survivors of chemical attacks. Although no physical
evidence has yet been retrieved from the remote Afghan h interland,
technical methods and human intelligence accounts, corroborated by
the testimony of Afghan army defectors, leave no doubt that
chemical weapons are being employed in Afghanistan. All that is
missing as it was for a while in Southeast Asia is th e I1smoking
gun The first accounts of communist chemical operations in
Afghanistan date from late summer 1979, four months before the
Soviets overtly invaded. At that time, freedom fighters attempt ing
to interdict the strategic Salang highway were bombed w ith what an
Afghan army officer (who later defected to the nationalist l3 l4
State Department Compendium, p. 118 Chemical Warfare in Southeast
Asia Wall Street Journal, September 21 1981, p. 34 l3 "Chemical
Warfare in Southeast Asia Wall Street Journal, S e ptember 21 1981,
p. 34. l4 State Department Compendium, p. 118. 10 side) termed
"nerve gas. If Since the Soviet invasion, chemical attacks have
been reported persistently in northeastern Afghani stan,
particularly in the isolated northern province of Bada k hshan At
least three broad types of gases have been identified a bright
yellow or green riot control agent that causes painful skin
blisters; an' incapacitant dubbed Blue-X that renders its victims
unconscious for up to eight hours; and a lethal agent tha t comes
in several different colors and is believed similar to IIYellow
Rain. II An eyewitness, who had survived a Ifdirty colored cloud
yellowish brown,11 recalls in anguish that Ifour fighters were
throwing up blood as if they have been drinking blood an d could
not hold any more. There was also blood in their eyes, like tears,
and from the nose. At first I thought it was from the concussion of
the bomb, but the bomb did not make a big explosion.

And our fighters did not have any marks on them. The rest of us
ran from the cloud. If In another incident, the same Afqhan reports
Wur fighters died quickly. They were vomiting blood &d fouiing
their clothes and began to act like crazy people falling dow n and
j erking about. It The yellowish brown clouds seem to be the
favored weapon for attacking freedom fighters holed up inside caves
and underground tunnels. Seagrave writes that such clouds have
"brought the freedom fighters writhing from their caves to dance
and squirm and spew blood, and die in spasms on the bare rock
reaches, like earthworms wriggling in a lethal spray of
insecticide.lll7 Dutch journalist Bernd de Bruin filmed such an
attack, took still photographs of a dead freedom fighter whose skin
had turned black and described the experience in the magazine
Niewsnet in August 19

80. An Afghan doctor now living in the United States, Dr.

Bashir Zikria, has filmed survivors of a chemical attack,
including one dying a lingering death from acute gas p oisoning
wells in southern and western Afghanistan and to be spreading an
oily, persistent nene agent on the ground in northeastern Afghani
stan. This dreadful substance clings to the feet of passing freedom
fighters and becomes lethal when warmed by a ca m pfire or by body
heat; it then kills in minutes. Ground observers have noted and
satellite photographs have confirmed the deployment of Soviet
decontamination units in forward combat areas, particularly in
northeastern Afghanistan. Modern TMS-65 decontari t ination
vehicles, capable of rapidly cleansing tanks and other equipment of
chemical agents in the field, and AGV-3 detoxification chambers for
decontaminating personnel, are used widely and maintained at high
readiness. In view of the fact that the Afgha n freedom The Soviets
are thought to be dumping a liquid poison into lS Ibid p. 6. l6 I7
Ibid p. 138.

Bothincidents quoted in Seagrave, op. cit p. 139.. 11 fighters
pose no chemical Lreat to Le Russians and since Le Russians already
have withdrawn non-esse ntial military units from Afghanistan to
hold down the size of their l1lirnitedl1 presence the continued
deployment of such decontamination units is a clear sign that
Moscow is carrying out chemical operations SOVIET CEEMICAL WARFARE'
CAPABILITIES The Sov i et Union's offensive and defensive chemical
warfare capabilities, systematically developed and refined over
decades are regarded as by far the world's best views chemical
agents as an integral part of overall military strength and sees
nuclear, chemical a n d biological weapons all as mews of mass
destructiorl. Soviet doctrine teaches 'that chemical weapons are
particularly well-suited for surprise attacks and for seizing
military and industrial facilities without destroying them Soviet
military doctrine Amo n g Moscow's forces are the 80,000 to 100,000
specialists of the Chemical Troops that are devoted to chemical
warfare defense By comparison, the U.S. has 2,000 such troops In
Soviet exercises, offensive chemical operations are carried out by
conventional fr ont line. units, with division commanders respons
ible for the planning, release and execution of the attacks.

Soviet military units have the training, equipment, doctrine and
organization to conduct sustained.chemica1 operations. Each
division of ground f orces maintains its own chemical defense
battalion complete with decontamination facilities for personnel
and equipment. Soviet armored vehicles are designed and equipped to
function in contaminated zones and quickly can be decontamina ted.
Rigorous chemi c al opefations training is routine in all terrain
and weather conditions; chemical warfare defense techni ques, in
fact, are taught in elementary school Soviet stocks of chemical
munitions exceed U.S. stocks by a ratio of at l'east 4-to-1 and
perhaps by as much as 10-to-

1. Some 5 to 30 percent of Soviet conGentibna1-munitions, say
analysts contain chemical payloads.lg .These include such first
generation agents as mustard- gas, second generation agents such as
tabun soman and VR-55 nerve gas and third gene ration agents such
as the tricothecene myc0toxins.1 E. M. Kallis chemical Warfare:
Background and Issues Congressional Research Semice, June 1981. p.
6.

For more information on Soviet chemical warfare capabilities
see: John Erickson, "The Soviet Union's G rowing Arsenal of
Chemical Warfare l9 12 TREATl VIOLATIONS Chemical warfare has been
prohibited on the battlefields of western nations for over fifty
years. Under the terms of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, to which the
Soviets are a party, asphyxiat ing, pois onous or other gases,
bacteriological methods of warfare and all analogous liquids,
materials and devices are banned from military use.

The 1972 Biological Warfare Convention, also signed by Moscow,
obliges states never in any circumstances to develop, pro duce,
stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain 1 microbial or other
biological agents, or toxins.whatever their origin or method of
production, of types and quantities that have no justification for
prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes; 2) w eapons,
equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or
toxins for hostile purposes or in armed con flict. I As
biologically produced chemical substances, mycotoxins fall within
the prohibitions of both the 1925 Geneva Protocol which forbids the
use of chemical weapons in warfare and the 1972 Biological Weapons
Convention which forbids production, stockpil ing or transfer of
toxin weapons. The Soviet Union stands in naked violation of these
two treaties as well as of customary international l aw of armed
conflict which prohibits the first use of such weapons crossed the
line respected by all civilized nations 0- and even by the Nazis,
who refrained from using their nerve gas stocks on battlefields
during World War

11. The oison atrocities in A sia along with the 1979 Sveralovsk
incidentFo raise grave doubts about the credibility of the
Kremlin's signature on international treaties By cynically
violating these agreements, the Soviets have CONCLUSION The Soviet
Union, incapable of growing enough g rain to feed its own
population, is devoting enormous resources and attention to growing
a grain fungus from which it extracts deadly mycotoxins for
military use. Aside from what this says about the nature of the
Soviet system, this chemical warfare effor t is disturbing for what
it indicates about Soviet intentions in any future conflict 2o In
April 1979, an explosion at a top secret Soviet defense laboratory
released a cloud of anthrax spores in the vicinity of the city of
Sverdlovsk killing up to 1,000 S o viet citizens. Moscow initially
dismissed reports of the accidentas "impudent slander then claimed
the deaths were due to spoiled meat, an explanation that is
contradicted by all of the available evidence. To this,day, the
Soviets have failed to explain t h e incident satisfactorily,
thereby failing to meet their obligation under, the 1972 Biological
Warfare Convention, to "cooperate in solving any problems which may
arise 13 Although the lethal mycotoxins are now being field-tested
exclu sively on anti-Sovi e t-guerrillas and villages in remote
corners of the Third world, it is not so difficult to imagine them
being unleashed on NATO or other western military forces in the
event of a military showdown. Given the relatively poor
preparedness of NATO armed force s for chemical warfare, this is a
grim prospect The Soviet Union's calculated duplicity in producing
toxin weapons, transferring them to client states and secretly
deploying them is also disturbing because of what it says about
MOSCOW'S appraisal of the re l ative costs and benefits of breaking
its obligations under international treaties. If the Soviets cheat
on chemical warfare agreements in order to gain marginal advant
ages in Asia, may they not also cheat on the much more critical
matter of strategic arm s limitations?

Finally the poisoning of thousands of civilian noncombatants is
an indictment of the values, methods, and morality of the Soviet
leadership itself. The Soviets have crossed a line that even Adolf
Hitler, in the darkest days of World War 11, refused to cross. The
use' of chemical weapons against remote Asian villages should be
triggering international outrage on legal and humanitarian grounds.
If these weapons continue to be used without thundering
international protest they could attain a le g itimacy that
portends appalling consequences for all mankind James A. PhilllDS
Policy Analyst 14 FOR FURTHER INEORMATION John Fullerton Poisoned
Earth Policy Far Eastern Economic Review October 30, 1981 Jane
Hamilton-MerriFt Gas Warfare in Laos Jane Hamil t on-Merritt Tragic
Legacy from Laos Reader's Digest, August 1981 Sterling Seagrave,
Yellow Rain (New York: Evans, 1981 U.S. Congress, House Select
Committee on Intelligence Soviet Biological Reader s Digest,
October. 1980 Warfare Activities June 1980 U.S. S tate Department
Repo.rts of 'the Use of Chemical Weapons in Afghanistan Laos and
Kampuchea Summer 1980 U.S. State Deparment Update to the Compendium
on Reports of the Use of Chemical Weapons March 1981 Barry Wain
Chemical Warfare in Southeast Asia Wall St reet Journal September
21, 1981 Wall Street Journal, editorials: November 3, 6, 13, and
23, and December 18 1981 Washington Post, editorials: November 11
and 27, 1981, and January 14, 1982.